Abstract: An overview of the radio observations during August 2023 is given.
The graphs show both the daily totals (Figure 1) and the hourly numbers (Figure 2) of “all” reflections counted automatically, and of manually counted “overdense” reflections, overdense reflections longer than 10 seconds and longer than 1 minute, as observed here at Kampenhout (BE) on the frequency of our VVS-beacon (49.99 MHz) during the month of August 2023.
The hourly numbers, for echoes shorter than 1 minute, are weighted averages derived from:
Due to mechanical damage to its transmitting antenna the beacon was out of order between August 24th at 17h40m UT and August 25th at 13h49m UT. Therefore, observations for this period are left out of the counts, especially because on these days also strong lightning activity made things worse. On 5 other days weak to moderate lightning activity was also observed, but over the month local or unidentified noise remained moderate to low. Quite strong solar bursts happened almost every day, but in general these were weaker than the previous month.
Eye-catchers were of cause the Perseids, reaching their maximum on both 13th and 14th of August, having been quite active as from the beginning of the month. After their maximum the number dropped rapidly, but on August 27th and the following days a moderate increase of overdense reflections longer than 10 seconds showed up.
Over the entire month, 67 reflections longer than 1 minute were observed. A small selection of these, along with some other interesting reflections is included (Figures 3 to 26). Many more of these are available on request.
In addition to the usual graphs, you will also find the raw counts in cvs-format from which the graphs are derived. The table contains the following columns: day of the month, hour of the day, day + decimals, solar longitude (epoch J2000), counts of “all” reflections, overdense reflections, reflections longer than 10 seconds and reflections longer than 1 minute, the numbers being the observed reflections of the past hour.